Copyright Piracy Laws in UAE: Understanding the Penalties

The copyright law in UAE is different from other countries. This report discusses the laws of copyrights on piracy in UAE and how these laws apply. It covers the penalties for copyright infringement and the governing laws.

Running head: COMMERCIAL AND CORPORATION LAW
Commercial and Corporation Law

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Introduction
The copyright law in UAE is said to be very different from the other countries. The
people have the wrong assumption about the laws of copyright piracy in UAE and deem to be
similar to the common law. UAE is a civil law jurisdiction that has been highly influenced by
French law and Islamic law. Therefore, the laws of copyright in UAE have been
fundamentally diversified. In this report, the laws of copyrights on the piracy in UAE will be
discussed and how these laws apply will be discussed.
Issue
The digital age providing us many benefits on daily basis we can share information
globally with only a click of a button but unfortunately often the information which has been
providing us is obtained by pirates. Pirates here not referring to any man on ships and loot
other ships treasure .pirates are in fact another team of people who are distributing illegal
information and material ranging from computer software to moves. Without any
authorization or licenses and sharing the material without the consent of the author
government around the world collaborating via the services of international organizations.
Such as world intellectual property organization to combat piracy and to solve the problem of
illegal copyright (Price & AlDebasi, 2017).
Protection
Many times the question arises why piracy is illegal anyway especially when pirated
content is reaching a wider spectrum of audience otherwise unable to enjoy it. However,
people fail to realize behind these multibillionaire industries original author are the ones who
are getting damage the most through the real publishers loses the chance of gaining profit.
The greater impact was on the real author who actually depends on the sales of the work. This
is an example of the negative connotation that piracy entails .this creates problems for the
artists, programmer who are actually living out of their work (Verdoodt & Lievens, 2016).
Enforcement
Intellectual property rights are being taken more seriously in the UAE and if any
violation then it will be subject to legal action in the law of the court. The pirates have been

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penalized for their criminal offence. The local authorities put their best efforts to protect their
rights whether it is multibillionaire or small underground artists (Ali Alhmoudi, et al, 2015).
Law Govern Copyright
UAE Federal law of copyright 2002 governs the copyright issues in UAE. In UAE
who infringes the laws may face severe punishment or it can also lead to deportation of
expats. In a recent case, one individual had been punished because of distributing for
promoting the unauthorised decoders that is used for internet protocol television. The court
has given its judgement in pursuance of Article 38 of UAE federal law of copyright 2002
(Altayar, 2017).
Application
Article 38 states that if an individual does any acts without the prior permission of the
author as mentioned above will be liable for the punishments. The person can be detained for
a minimum of three months and imposition of fine that must be not less than 50000 and
should not be more than 5,00,000 (Verdoodt, & Lievens, 2016).
Moreover, in article 121 that states that if any foreigner would have been punished for
a felony or misdemeanour than the court can order for the deportation of the person from the
state. The person who infringed that shall be based on article 34 and 42 is the federal
combating cybercrimes (Al Sakkaf & Baker, 2018). It has been stated in Article 34 that if
any person have been benefitted from the third part communication such as visual or audio
transmission should be deemed as unlawful. The individual can be punished with
imprisonment that not been less than one year and the penalty will not be less than 2,50,000
and will not exceed 1,000,000 (Taylor, 2017).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that UAE has a different way of dealing with the law
abiders and do copyright piracy. There are many strict laws that to punish the pirates. It can
be said that the many Act has been enacted for the safety of the copyrights and been punished
under various laws if anyone does piracy.

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References
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Altayar, M. S. (2017). A comparative study of anti-cybercrime laws in the Gulf Cooperation
Council countries. In Anti-Cyber Crimes (ICACC), 2017 2nd International
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Price, D., & AlDebasi, A. (2017). TRIPS and copyright and the nature of compliance in the
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Taylor, Q. C. (2017). The Confluence of Civil and Common Law (and the Influence of the
Shari’a) in Middle East Construction Arbitrations. BCDR International Arbitration
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Verdoodt, V., & Lievens, E. (2016). Children’s digital rights and self-regulation: In harmony
or out of tune?. In BILETA.